Yesterday I was sitting in my usual place, a favourite old Lloyd Loom, feet on the table, drawing ducks, when my chair suddenly "boinged" loudly like a cartoon jack-in-the-box and I realised the springs had given way dramatically, and quite musically. It's been a pretty dramatic week, as you'll know if you follow me in any of the usual following places. Last Friday I'd just arrived for my shift at the Craftsmen at the Priory exhibition in Lanercost, and run around the corner for the keys, when some people decided to smash my car window and make off with my lunch (my first priority, which probably explains the collapsing chair). Actually they took more than my lunch but when something like that happens it takes a while for your brain to catch up; so for a long while I just looked at the glass on the drivers seat and wondered why I'd left my coffee pot there.
One thing that happens when something goes badly wrong is that people are generally lovely and all the other artists in the exhibition were great, Christina Hargraves quietly went off and bought me a replacement lunch, returning later to fashion a temporary window for the drive home. They were all really shocked because Lanercost really is a very beautiful and fairly sleepy little place, at least since all that fuss in 1538, and goodness knows why villains were targeting 16 year old VW Golfs at quarter to nine on a Friday morning. Interestingly there is a section on the Wikipedia page entitled "Visitors and Raiders" which I might have to add to...It took me until the drive home to remember the full list of stolen things : a box of stock (handmade books, lanterns & mugs), my hare bag and lovely pencil case (with precious sentimental pens), sketchbook, keys, purse, pouch of migraine/stress cures (ha!) , my glasses and my bloody lunch. Weirdly they'd left my phone, the only "valuable" item that I'd stupidly left on view. The really annoying thing is that I SAW them ( the only other car in the car park) and yet my entire childhood spent reading Sherlock Holmes stories taught me nothing and I can't even remember if their car was silver or white!
Anyway, it's done now, I'm trying to look on the funny side (if I struggle to sell my artwork how will they? Were they disappointed that the risotto was vegetarian? Why did they take the coffee but not the pot?) and the gestures of kindness and generosity from friends and strangers makes me grateful that my life is enriched by good people and that's something those thieves must surely lack.
You wondered why I was drawing ducks when the chair gave way? Well thanks to a chance connection in Sam Read's Bookshop, I've been asked to illustrate a little book that is being written as a part of a series designed to help teach children English, mainly in Africa. I'm really enjoying drawing and inventing characters. It's actually nice working to someone else's brief, although the stolen sketchbook had lots of my initial drawings in it, which is annoying but it could have been worse. Last week the writer Tom Cox had his bag stolen in a pub in Bristol; it contained his notebook with a year's worth of notes for his new book. Lets hope all stolen things, especially Tom's book, are found and returned or at least end up with someone who appreciates that value isn't always measured in pound notes. If you're a robber and by chance you're reading this, please can I have my glasses back?I want to write more now that I've finally got started - but I'm hopeless at getting up in the morning, it's late and I'm back at Lanercost for 10 am ( the exhibition has some outstanding work in it by the way) so I must go to bed soon (also I need to work on a spell which will see flocks of malevolent crows pursuing the thieves for all eternity...) Meanwhile here's an event you might like to come to if you're near Grasmere in September...https://twitter.com/SReadBooks/status/1031138539839344641Reading : Everything Under by Daisy Johnson and "Floating" by Joe Minihane
I've just come in from a late evening wander up the valley, raising moths with every footfall and, for the first time in months, feeling the familiar squish of damp ground underfoot instead of bone jarring, cracked earth. I went down to the beck and stood knee deep in the water for ages (a regular post migraine activity) gazing up at the mountain who was looking benign and majestic in the warm evening light. I squiggle toes in the slippery pebbles and clamber about on the bank where the rocks are warm still and the bracken prematurely tinted with Autumn; almost tempted to go back for a tent so that I can sleep next to the water. On the way home I stop to talk to my favourite tree thinking how precious it is to be able to do this, being alone in such a beautiful place momentarily lets me be the child I still am inside since there's nothing about to show me I'm actually a small 51 year old woman acting like a lunatic talking to trees and wallowing about in the beck dressed in pants and a hoodie. Something about this summer's heatwave has me reliving childhood memories of golden barefoot summers in the 70's, just as it's revealing ancient earthworks, drowned villages and lost gardens. This is the summer they will talk about for years to come.As ever I started writing a blog post in May and have had to scrap the whole thing because so much has happened in the mean time. A proper summer for the first time in 4 years and the generous loan of a Canadian canoe has meant we've felt extra lucky to be living in the Lake District - what we lack in financial security or a packed social life has to some degree, been balanced out by the priceless joy of a clandestine night on Wild Cat Island, a picnic supper on Ullswater ( even though we canoed double the distance because we forgot to pack the gas for the tiny miniature stove and had to go back!) or an afternoon gliding about in the swimming "pots" of Borrowdale.[embed]https://www.instagram.com/p/Bkim5cBgSW9/?taken-by=witchmountain[/embed]I've just returned from my weekend at Art in the Pen in Thirsk where we all nearly melted in the cattle market under the sweltering North Yorkshire sun! This year I didn't do so well ( many people said sales were down on previous years) but I think I enjoyed myself more. My pen neighbour Hannah Sawtell was particularly lovely and we had good chats about politics, future directions and the joys/trials of parenthood/cat caring/empty nests. I fell in love with several of her prints but the one I had to have included a quote from a favourite REM song and someone looking slightly uncertain on the edge of a moonlit pool ...[embed]https://www.instagram.com/p/BaBckyog10F/?taken-by=hannahjainesawtell[/embed]We did a little artist swap which sadly is the only way I can own the art I love at the moment. I sometimes feel like such a hypocrite going on about #JustaCard all the time and then leaving the "pens" of people whose work I've admired for years without buying anything but it really would have been madness to spend the small profit I'd made because that will be needed to pay for the materials and costs of the next event. It really is hand to mouth sometimes and times are hard for many of the creative people I met. Rupert had helped me set up and take down my pen and commented afterwards that he really felt for those who hadn't done so well "...they all work so hard, they're all makers and they make the world a better place." The overriding feeling was positive though, despite the heat, the farmyard aromas, the slow sales and all. The visitors were all enthusiastic and full of praise and the other artists full of camaraderie and humour; I love the concept of artists taking over the cattle market for a weekend and replacing the animal s**t with things of beauty, it makes me smile for so many reasons !
... As usual it's taken me an age to write half of what I wanted say and its now tomorrow! I've just been into Keswick to post out some orders, including some of the cyanotype workshop kits I've put together, and got side tracked by a rarely open antiquarian bookshop. I came away with an armful of old Observer guides and intend to spend this evening identifying "Grasses and Sedges" on the fell side with a spot of bilberry picking if the birds haven't eaten them all ( my car is always covered in purple bird poo at this time of year). The rest of the week will be busy with lovely bookshop days and a cyanotype workshop for Cumbria Printmakers in Shap where we have an exhibition until Sunday.And so the summer speeds along and it's been a good year for the roses.
I've been stitching and printing like mad for all the exhibitions I'm taking part in; much of the new work features stitched roses on cyanotype still lives and the elusive dream of a home with roses around the door . The next event will be Craftsmen at the Priory in the Dacre Hall at Lanercost. I visited last week and it's a seriously beautiful part of Cumbria, right on Hadrian's Wall. I do feel very honoured to be one of the core group's invited guests especially as this is the 40th anniversary of the exhibition. It opens on August 8th with a preview evening including a 10% discount. Here's your invitation...
Now I must go and learn some new plant names, write a newsletter and organise the things I've unpacked and piled in the middle of the floor after Art in the Pen. I want to write more often, I will try, it's often the World that makes me silent- why add to the noise when there are important things to be said, by people better able to say them. Will you read if I keep writing? I hope so.
Recent Reading: Swallows and Amazons - A Ransome, Sweet Caress - William Boyd , 16 Trees of the Somme- Lars Mytting, The Gloaming - Kirsty Logan Rotherweird - Andrew Caldecott (audio book) , 21st Century Yokle - Tom Cox (audio book)
Well here I am, a decade since my first faltering steps into the world of Wordpress and being Witchmountain. What started out as a student blog, documenting the last weeks of my degree at CCAD has morphed into...something else; part confessional, part diary, part ...I don't quite know. So much has changed, everything has changed. Looking back at that first post I feel the sadness of loss; some of the people commenting and offering encouragement back then are now no longer in my life ( the perils of having much younger friends who were bound to leave my path for their own sooner or later, I suppose) Times change and even my old art college has recently reinvented itself as The Northern School of Art (in my parent's day it was Middlesbrough Art College). There is happiness too of course; keeping a fairly regular record of things that have happened over the past ten years I can see that my work has continued to develop and hopefully improve, there are stories hidden between the lines that I thought would break me but didn't and there are joys which would never have happened without the sorrows. Fewer people read this blog now and the quick fix of social media has taken over but I still feel as though it was was of the best things to come out of my years at CCAD- I didn't get the dream graduate job and I haven't made a fortune out of my design work or become a superstar blogger but I'm still here making and creating. Writing has given me a place to work things out and attempt to order my thoughts, at times it has helped me make decisions and feel less alone - this blog has actually helped me make new friends and reconnect with old ones - so Thank You.
I'm sitting in the garden that isn't mine, my head aches but the breeze and birdsong are soothing, the air smells of something sweet. Two rabbits just ran over my feet not realising I was here, a vole popped out from a plant pot and the owl family in the ugly Thuja trees are calling to each other in broad daylight. I half expect Mrs Tiggywinkle to trundle past with her washing but today there has been a big fell race so she's probably keeping well out of the way ( actually in 3 years I haven't seen one hedgehog here in Newlands Valley which is odd) On the steep fell side opposite me I can see a crowd of people on mountain bikes being extreme, as is the fashion in these parts.
This is only going to be a short post because, as I said, my head is aching but it seemed important to make sure I posted something today to make things neat! I've been thinking about what to write for ages to try and mark the occasion and of course I will probably not say any of it now because I'm rushing. I'll just do basic housekeeping instead of rambling on and remind you that at the end of the month there will be an extra special draw for newsletter subscribers and website customers - so be one of those if you want to win something lovely. There are loads of events and exhibitions coming up starting with Art in the Shed in Osmotherley on May 26th. Always bittersweet for me but I can't wait to spend time with my very good friend Jane who puts this event on in her beautiful North Yorkshire garden to raise money for the Street Child Africa charity . I'll have new work with me including these Ghost Flowers in various arrangements ( pictured as work in progress) as well as some new card designs.
Now I'm going to close my eyes for a little while and dab some lavender on my forehead, hoping to recover enough for a little swim later this evening. Thank you for reading, especially if you've lasted the full ten years and traveled with me from North Yorkshire to this version of Witchmountain.... x
Reading :- The Dictionary of Animal Languages " Heidi Sopinka and "Wildwood" Rodger Deakin